“Food is what you are, and you are what you eat. Food serves multiple purposes. On one hand, it's to nourish your body with physical things that it needs, but you can also use food to soothe emotions, avoid emotions, as entertainment, or when you feel sad. It allows for a certain degree of emotional manipulation.” – Tony Federico

Food is an important part of our everyday life, but sometimes we allow unhealthy, processed foods to manipulate our bodies' health and emotions. Unfortunately, eating healthy is not always an easy switch to make with big multinational corporations selling and promoting foods everywhere we look.

However, we have the ultimate power to make the decision to decide what we eat every day. Take a moment look inside yourself and ask if your relationship with food is a healthy one. It's okay to admit that it's not a healthy relationship and that you're ready for a change in your life.

On this week's podcast, host of the Paleo Magazine Radio podcast, Tony Federico, shares with us how he overcame an unhealthy relationship with food and how making a goal to live a more Paleolithic lifestyle has transformed his body and his life.

How To Create A Healthy Relationship With Food

As humans that operate from the reptilian brain, what do we ultimately need to thrive?

We need real food.

Take a moment to think about where our ancestors found their source of food. It wasn't from the processed food section from the grocery store, but from real foods like fruits, nits, seeds, vegetables and different meats.

If you are what you eat, then your relationship with food can say a lot about whether you are tuned in with your body or not.

Tony himself struggled in his early life before finding paleo living to create a healthy relationship with food. At one point before college, he found himself in a vicious cycle of doing unhealthy amounts of exercise and eating processed foods that he actually believed to be “healthy.”

In looking back on his lifestyle, Tony shares on the show how his obsession of eating perceived healthy food was Orthorexia nervosa before it even existed on Wikipedia.

To help us create a healthy relationship with food, Tony unpacks how we first get to understand how it helps our body. How all natural foods with real nutrients and vitamins give you the energy and strength to live a healthy life every day.

Feeding Yourself From A Place of Love & Abundance

“Maybe my body is not the enemy. Maybe I can work with this thing if I understand it.”– Tony Federico on the Paleo Diet

What does your life balance look like right now? Maybe the mix includes:

But is everything balanced evenly? What areas do you dedicate your time to the most? Which areas are healthy and which are unhealthy?

If your health and nutrition are not at the best place that they can be, you may have to change your daily nutrition. For Tony, going Paleo helped him to rethink the benefits of food and a healthy lifestyle.

To give your body the love and abundance that it needs to stay healthy, real food can help give you the right mindset and positive energy that you need in your life. If you're eating unhealthy, it can throw you off balance in all six areas of your life.

Reach Your Goals With Reverse Engineering

One method to help you complete a goal is to do it via “reverse engineering.”

Reverse engineering goals is when you pick a specific goal and decide what types of systems, people, and environment you can put into place to help you reach that goal.

As part of the goal, you need to have a base number, but it's very important that you have zero judgement towards that number. For example, if you want to lose 20 pounds and your base start number is 200 pounds. Don't judge that number because it will only lead to negative thinking. Instead, use it to help you see the results that you want.

Next, do your homework to start planning and creating a strategy. Be responsible and have the will and commitment to do it. Even if your plan isn't working, think about what can you do to change it so that it does work? The slightest tweak can help you get to the goal that you want to complete if you have the willpower to complete it.

More About Tony Federico

Tony is the host of the Paleo Magazine Radio podcast, author of an eBook audio program deep dish, “Paleo Grilling: A Modern Caveman's Guide to Cooking with Fire”, and Cofounder of Powerful PT, an innovative information resource for Fitness Professionals. He has appeared on numerous local and national television and radio broadcasts and regularly hosts healthy cooking workshops and informational lectures. He is also a speaker full-time Personal Trainer and Wellness Consultant who lives in Jacksonville Florida with his wife Jamie.

Thanks To Our Amazing Sponsor

Go toperfectsupplements.com/wellnessforceto get your grass-fed collagen from today's show and sign up for afree membership, plus get 10% off your entire order –just enterpromo code “wellnessforce”at checkout.

Ask A Live Question For The Next Episode

Click hereto leave a voicemail directly to Josh Trent to be read live!

Lauren Bryant is the Podcasting Assistant and Show Notes Writer for Wellness Force Radio. She has a BBA in both Marketing and Spanish for Business as well as certificates in Advanced Business Communications and International Business from the University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire.

Lauren’s wellness journey began at a young age when she joined her local YMCA swim team, The Wave, of La Crosse, WI. One of the most profound views on wellness that anyone has said to her was when she was an assistant swim coach for that same YMCA swim team.

One day during a practice, former head swim coach, Jon Brenner, shared with her that the most important thing about coaching the swimmers was that “It doesn’t matter if they become the best athletes in the world. What’s important is that we give them the tools and guidance they need to live a healthy, active lifestyle for the rest of their lives.”

Since hearing those words, she has taken it to heart to not only focus on continuously living her own healthy lifestyle, but to help others pursue their wellness goals as well.

Lauren is not only an avid swimmer, but a fan of running, yoga, cooking, and doing any activity outside that involves being surrounded by nature. In the Fall of 2014, she completed a long-awaited goal of walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

According to Lauren, wellness is about finding gratitude and joy in doing any type of physical or self-care activity that we love. Wellness means providing ourselves with self-love, good nutrition, and the inner peace that our individual minds and bodies need.